In any case, Yiyoung felt sorry for getting Chahyun involved in an unnecessary mess, so he fidgeted with his fingers. But he spoke of the feeling that was much greater than his guilt.
“Thank you.”
Chahyun seemed satisfied with the thanks and nodded, relaxing his extremely irritated expression.
He still looked like he was in pain. His sculpture-like, perfectly handsome face had probably never been this wrecked before, and likely never would be again.
Even so, Yiyoung didn’t think Chahyun’s face looked bad at all. On the contrary, he looked the most handsome he’d ever seen. Feeling unexpectedly shy, Yiyoung lowered his gaze and deliberately brought up an irrelevant topic.
“But even in that situation, Chahyun-ssi didn’t curse once.”
That was truly unexpected. Although he had grabbed Ki Taeseong by the collar out of nowhere and called him trash, Chahyun had acted relatively calm and dignified compared to the situation.
Feeling sorry for having internally misunderstood Chahyun—who had been chasing and tormenting him at every opportunity—as nothing more than a high school delinquent, Yiyoung awkwardly continued.
“I thought Chahyun-ssi would act much more rough.”
“Bae Yiyoung-ssi, if I wanted to, I’m someone who can curse in five languages. You might misunderstand because I’m so elegant, thinking I don’t know how to curse.”
Chahyun suddenly glared at Yiyoung accusingly.
“You know I held back because of you, right?”
For once, Chahyun looked like he’d developed a stress-induced illness.
Of course, Yiyoung didn’t misunderstand for a moment that Chahyun had been intimidated by Ki Taeseong and thus held back his curses and refrained from fighting back. There was no reason for him to do that. He didn’t seem that way either.
Feeling good for some reason, Yiyoung smiled, and Chahyun burst into complaints.
“Honestly, my pride is really hurt right now and I’m humiliated. Why should I have to hear that I’m nothing special? And from someone trying to squeeze blood from a flea, no less. If Bae Yiyoung-ssi hadn’t stopped me, I wouldn’t have looked like that.”
So I’m the flea, is that it? And he’s frustrated that I prevented him from getting beaten up more.
But perhaps having adapted to Chahyun’s way of speaking by now, Yiyoung found it amusing rather than offensive. Chahyun, who seemed to have absolutely no intention of squeezing Yiyoung’s blood, held his breath for a moment to calm his anger. Then, with an expression of retracing why he had gotten so worked up, he added:
“What makes me angry is that I can’t carelessly interfere in Bae Yiyoung-ssi’s affairs.”
“…Why? Because you want to help me?”
As if he hadn’t thought that far, Chahyun hesitated before nodding. Yiyoung’s smile grew wider.
‘He’s kind.’
One might think this was the type of person he wouldn’t want to get entangled with. But there was nothing he could do about it.
Even if they had been dating, Yiyoung would have stopped Chahyun in the same situation, but he would have understood even if Chahyun had interfered to the end. If Chahyun didn’t hesitate to get caught up in trouble for his sake, Yiyoung would feel a little sorry and very grateful. He might have even willingly allowed him to solve his problems. But now that they were complete strangers, he couldn’t accept such kindness.
Then he suddenly became curious about how Chahyun would have acted before losing his memory.
He couldn’t imagine it well. But surely the desire to help with the troubles Yiyoung was experiencing would have been the same. Though the previous Chahyun never told him his thoughts and feelings or showed them outwardly, so he would have never known and passed by it.
Thinking that way, the current Chahyun wasn’t such a completely different person from the one Yiyoung knew.
He just had aspects that Yiyoung hadn’t known about until now. If he looked carefully, perhaps somewhere inside this willful elementary school brat, the Moon Chahyun that Yiyoung liked was sleeping.
Somehow he felt glad.
At least in this moment, he didn’t miss Chahyun. Yiyoung felt like he was reuniting with Chahyun for the first time in a very long while, and finally.
Yiyoung squatted beside Chahyun, resting his arms on both knees as he muttered.
“I wish Chahyun-ssi had been a timid person instead. Then you would have run away as soon as you saw Ki Taeseong.”
All the people he’d dated before were hot-tempered, yet they took care of themselves in front of Ki Taeseong. Yiyoung understood and was relieved by those who, even after seeing Ki Taeseong picking a fight with him, were busy looking away in confusion rather than protesting. Only Chahyun didn’t do that, which upset him.
With his smiling face still on but his voice slightly gloomy, Yiyoung said:
“I thought it was fortunate that Chahyun-ssi just meekly took it. If you’d fought back, you would have been hurt much worse, and I really hate seeing Chahyun-ssi get hurt. Though it seems like you were planning to fight back.”
Yiyoung wished Chahyun were the type of person who would turn away pretending not to know when troublesome things arose, playing innocent and running away. Both from Ki Taeseong and from Yiyoung.
He really didn’t know what Chahyun was trying to do, acting in ways that would make his heart lean this way. Without any fear.
In Yiyoung’s eyes, his own circumstances—which would only displease Chahyun if they shared a future together—were beginning to become increasingly clear. Today especially. That’s why Yiyoung was worried about Chahyun and unsettled himself.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but say the next words.
“I know you didn’t fight more and acted politely because of me. Thank you for listening to me first rather than doing as you pleased. I’m sorry for thinking this when Chahyun-ssi is hurt, but I. Perhaps. No, that’s why even more. The fact that Chahyun-ssi took the beating but bent for my sake.”
Yiyoung buried his flushed forehead on his folded arms and said:
“Makes me so happy.”
If they kept meeting, he would definitely fall for him again. That strong intuition made Yiyoung afraid. A wise person would cut Chahyun off decisively at this point.
‘I really don’t want to get hurt anymore.’
Yet his heart pounded hard without any sense.
He tried to calm down, but he felt a large hand wedging between his face and arms. Chahyun lightly gripped Yiyoung’s chin and lifted his head. Making direct eye contact with Yiyoung, who obviously had a flushed, tearful face, he asked an unexpected question.
“What about now?”
“Huh?”
Yiyoung sniffled and tilted his head in confusion. Chahyun asked again.
“Not even now?”
As Yiyoung opened his lips to ask back what wasn’t right, Chahyun suddenly gave him a quick peck on the lips.
Yiyoung was so surprised his tears dried up. Dumbfounded, he blinked blankly at Chahyun. Chahyun’s eyes seemed to be observing and gauging Yiyoung’s reaction. A dazed exclamation leaked through Yiyoung’s teeth.
“Uh…”
Yiyoung belatedly understood that Chahyun had asked, ‘Is now the right mood to kiss?’
His face flushed hotly in an instant. His chest pounded so hard it felt like it would burst, making his hands and feet feel hot. As he could only make “uh, uh-uh” sounds without the capacity to answer the question in his flustered state, Chahyun smiled. Chahyun drew closer while still kneeling in a low position.
“Looks like this time is right.”
It wasn’t though.
It definitely wasn’t, but those words wouldn’t come out. Because of that, Yiyoung missed the chance to resist as Chahyun pulled his chin and pressed their lips together seamlessly.
His lips naturally parted. Yiyoung closed his eyes at the sensation of their tongues smoothly intertwining. While helplessly accepting Chahyun, he thought:
‘I was certain I wouldn’t have liked him if I’d known what kind of person he was from the start.’
Yiyoung had thought that if he’d known Chahyun’s status, he would have rejected his confession early on and given up. No, he would have felt like they were completely different species, so he probably wouldn’t have developed feelings in the first place. At the very least, he was confident he absolutely wouldn’t have liked his elementary school brat-like aspects.
But he couldn’t know now whether that would have really been the case.
***
Everything people gossiped about regarding first kisses was true. It was dizzying and ecstatic.
Yiyoung’s lips were delicate and soft. The inside was unbelievably hot. After their sharply tensed tongue tips touched and flinched a couple of times, the soft flesh tangled at length and frantically caressed each other. Chahyun’s vision beneath his closed eyelids turned white.
It was fortunate he hadn’t missed the right timing to kiss.
If he’d gotten a “completely not” answer this time too, Chahyun would have truly been bewildered. He didn’t understand why, but at least in Chahyun’s eyes, Yiyoung saying “I’m so happy” had a face soaked in love. He had the intuition that if not even now was right, a time when he could kiss Yiyoung would essentially never come.
Even while dizzy from the kiss, Chahyun earnestly marveled:
‘An older guy is an older guy after all.’
Strictly speaking they were the same age, but at least in Chahyun’s mind, he was twenty years old.
